Social Media: Valid Certs or Snake Oil?

You don’t have to look very hard or very long
to find a raft of certification programs and credentials on social media. A
quick Google search on “social media certification” turns up numerous training
and consulting companies that offer credentials to students, and a sizable
number of academic institutions that offer certificate programs in this subject
matter as well. But what separates a serious, well-crafted certification
program from a blatant cash grab? I’m glad you asked! I’ll explore what makes
certification both real and serious, and explain how some programs succeed
while others fail in measuring up to these criteria.

There's a LOT of social media "out there!"(image courtesy of LunaMetrics)

As I write this post, a Google search on “social media
certification” produces over 50 million results. In the list of results I see
programs from online colleges and universities, and offerings from a variety of
technology (HootSuite) and training (marketmotive.com, socialmedia-academy.com)
companies. I also see numerous blog posts and articles with titles such as “The ‘Social Media Certificate’ – Smart
Move or Scam?” and “Social
Media Certification Is Absurd.” All of this speaks eloquently to me about a
kind of “wild digital frontier” where strong buzz plus equally strong business
and marketing interest create a marketplace for all kinds of learning and
credentialing opportunities in the white-hot area of social media and social
marketing.

This leads me to suggest a list of questions to which
prospective certification candidates would be well-advised to seek answers
before signing up or plunking down any cash for social media training and certifications
in general, but for any relatively unknown, untried, or unfamiliar IT
certifications in general:

1. Does
the same organization that provides certifications, certificates or credentials
also provide training to help candidates earn such things? If so, you’d better
be on your guard, because if they can persuade you to part with your time and
money, they may have already gotten everything they need from your mutual
business and learning relationship.

2. Does
the certification provider have any industry association, professional society,
or trade group affiliations? Most of the non-vendor IT certifications originate
from and/or involve industry groups interested in promoting specific tools,
technologies, or IT agendas. Involvement from such groups in a certification is
good, and involvement from big and well-known industry groups is even better.
If the officers of the training/cert company are also officers in the purported
trade groups, this is a warning sign that relationships may be too cozy to be
good for you, but certainly not too cozy to be good for them?

3. Can
the certification provider speak to the methodology used to develop its
credentials? Most “serious certifications” – like those from CompTIA,
Microsoft, Cisco, and so forth – depend on detailed interviews with subject
matter experts (SMEs) to develop exam topics and a “common body of knowledge”
for the credential as it’s so often described in many programs, along with
detailed job task analyses to figure out what kinds of topics to cover,
questions to ask, activities to simulate or model, and so on and so forth. Most
serious certification programs also go through painstaking psychometric
analysis to make sure questions are not only technically valid and relevant,
but also statistically meaningful in separating candidates who know their stuff
from those who don’t. The idea is to create testing instruments that
successfully identify individuals who understand the common body of knowledge
for the certification sufficiently well to do the jobs that are associated with
the topics, tools, and technologies the certification claims to cover.

4. Does
the certification provider have a relationship with a big international testing
company like Pearson VUE or Prometric? Are their exams proctored and regularly
updated? Covered by aftermarket practice tests, published study guides and Exam
Crams, and so forth? Lack of an aftermarket speaks loudly about popularity,
market relevance, and staying power – all important characteristics for a
certification program to survive and thrive.

5. Are
the subjects for the certification clearly described? Can you find detailed
objectives for the exams involved? Does the provider require in-class or online
training to sit for an exam, or can you challenge the exam without mandatory
training? All these things can indicate potential sticking points, though they
are not always indicative of substandard or ill-conceived certifications. For
example, VMware and Oracle both regularly require cert candidates to attend
authorized training classes, but their certifications are well-designed, and
meet other requirements for concept, design, methodology, and delivery.

By the metrics and measurements inherent to these questions,
very few social media certification or certificate programs measure up. Among those
my search turned up, those from better-known academic institutions may cost
more, but will at least offer college credit, and a well-documented program and
curriculum that candidates can examine and evaluate. Before jumping into any
such program, I’d urge candidates to seek answers to my questions, to ask about
job placement services and success rates for certified professionals,
certificate holders, or graduates, and to talk to those graduates to learn
about their experiences, their level of satisfaction, and the degree to which
attendance produced a positive outcome. That’s the only way to be sure you’re
not just forking over cash to make somebody else happy, instead of investing in
your future and adding to your career potential.